Alec Baldwin Will Play Bruce Wayne’s Dad, But Like Trump, in Joaquin Phoenix ‘Joker’ Movie

The new DC spinoff about the Batman villain sounded bizarre when we learned Joaquin Phoenix would play the Clown Prince of Crime. It became even more head-scratching when Todd Phillips, director of The Hangover films, was announced to direct. Then Robert De Niro was rumored to join the cast. Now the DC project has enlisted Alec Baldwin.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Baldwin is set to play Bruce Wayne’s dad, Thomas Wayne. But wait, it gets weirder – he’ll be bringing his Trump impression to the role. The trade notes that the script depicts Batman’s father as “a cheesy and tanned businessman who is more in the mold of a 1980s Donald Trump.” This movie is either going to be so insanely odd that it’s kind of great, or a total disaster. Either way, consider me cautiously intrigued.

The movie is said to be a more experimental and darker take on the DC villain’s origin story. Rumored to be loosely based on The Killing Joke graphic novel and inspired by Scorsese’s The King of Comedy, the movie would imagine Phoenix’s Joker as a failed comedian in the ‘80s, so the Trump reference does make sense. The project will have a smaller budget than most comic book movies, and will likely debut under a separate banner adjacent to the main DCEU. The rest of the cast includes Deadpool 2‘s Zazie Beetz, set to play a single mother and who catches Phoenix’s interest, and GLOW‘s Marc Maron.

We’ll find out what this peculiar concoction of talents adds up to when the Joker movie arrives in theaters October 4, 2019.